Springhill Group Korea: Is Home for the Aged a Better Option

Home for the aged is a general
term for a facility that cares for elderly people. It is not a question of where but a question
of how. How is home for the aged can do
good for our elderly?

In a fast phase world like ours,
finding time for fun and leisure is hard and finding time for family is
harder. Sometimes we are left with no
choice. We are forced to leave our
elderly family members in a nursing home or more popular as home for the aged.

There is always two sides in a
story, leaving elderly family member in a caring home has advantages and
disadvantages. Number of senior citizens
suddenly seemed to multiply since 1950’s.
In 1900 the average life expectancy was forty-five, by 1950 the average
life span was almost seventy years; the population has doubled but the number
of people65 and over had quadrupled to become 8% of the total. In 1950’s more and more population of
“retirees” are supposed to get their pensions.
Due to this case, extended families are seemed to be an obligation,
where elderly had to stay with their sons, daughters or grandchildren.

People then began wondering how
to accommodate this burden. They started
taking about nursing homes, retirement houses, or apartments where they can
leave their elderly. Golden years are
supposed to have a positive connotation but now the phrase developed into a
different meaning. Instead of the
“golden years” being now, I a one’s old age golden refers to the good old days.

Studies showed that people in
developed countries are not only living longer, but also remain healthy for
much of their lives, unlike in less developed countries, where the elderly tend
to be plagued with serious illnesses. Causing
them to live longer which means government has to support them because they are
already retirees. In order to support
them, one must work and working means no one to take care of the elderly.

Elderly has a special healthcare
although facilities like home for the aged are designed to take care of them
they are often lacking human resources and other needs of these retirees. A sad truth is some facilities have no mercy
on their patients. Sometimes they
overmedicate them and let them lay in their beds for hours and even days. They lack people to attend to the elderly so
they had to choose over feeding them and bathing them. They feed them and who knows how and what,
and then they will let them stay in soiled clothes and beds. Those were just samples. But not every home is like that, there are
homes where they will take care of the elderly and makes sure that they are
well feed and well medicated.

If you are thinking of taking
your elderly family member to homes, you must weigh things and consider
possibilities and other options first.
Sometimes it will work for you and your dad for example but sometimes it
is better if you’d get help and pay assistance from private nurses. Whatever your decision is, you must remember
that they once took care of us and had been very patient to us when we were
younger; it is time to pay them back.
Your son or daughter will do the same for you in the future.